AnguiSH

by Lila Felix

  He cut all the pieces to the right sizes, then sanded and weather sealed them. It was a sight to watch him work. Even though he was thin, he was strong and I let my mind wander to what he would look like built and muscled. How happy he could be without that permanent scowl on his face when he didn’t think I was looking.

  I wanted to ask him so many things but didn’t feel right yet. What set him off that night? Holly must’ve really been an amazing woman to have brought him so far off the beaten path. Mrs. Collins only gave me the generalized story—no details. She’d acted like she was embarrassed by the whole thing. Or maybe she didn’t want to tarnish her reputation in front of the help. Who knew?

  “Come help me, don’t just perch there and stare at my ass all day.” He mocked me.

  “Really? What do you want me to do? I’d probably saw my fingers off or something.”

  “Get in front of me, I’ll help you.” He stepped back from the sawhorses and made a motion for me to get in front of him.

  “Power tools scare me.” I protested.

  “Oh no, you made me go to the store. I’m making you do this. Come on. Don’t make me go all Ash on you.”

  “You can’t go Ash on Ash, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Fine, but just think about the possibility. You in front of me, my arms around you, sweat pouring down us both.”

  “Are we back to the innuendos already?” My hands popped up to my hips, arguing for me.

  He shrugged, “No, no innuendos, just the truth. Now come on. It’ll be fun.”

  I relented and he put a pair of those God awful clear plastic goggles on my head. I stepped in front of him and actually sawed a piece of wood in half without losing a digit. I was amazed.

  “You want to do one by yourself?” He asked.

  “Hell no, that was a fluke. I’m still in shock that I still have all my fingers. Nah, I’m good over here, ogling you.”

  He rolled his eyes and continued his work.

  After a while, I went inside to make lunch and clean up a bit, that was my job after all. I thought about asking him what exactly had happened that night with Holly. I now knew her name per my last meeting with Mrs. Collins. She fed me tidbits of information but never enough to satisfy my need to know. A pang of guilt throbbed in my chest at the duality of my agenda, but hopefully this would help him, even if he hated me for it.

  I went out a few hours later and the wood was gone, the sawhorses and saw put up. I saw him through the panes of the greenhouse, stepping back, admiring the glory. I stepped through the door and he put his arm up in the air, an invitation to join him. I stood next to him, he put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head like it was something he’d always done.

  “The glory,” I remarked.

  “Huh?” He answered but didn’t remove his eyes from the completed project.

  “The glory. When you accomplish something and then just sit back and admire the gleam.”

  “Yep, that’s what I’m doing. I’m gonna grab my camera.” He ran out of the greenhouse, faster than he ran when we were actually running.

  He returned a few minutes later with a camera that looked like it was made for one of those professional photographers on America’s Next Top Model. Leave it to Breaker to surprise me again.

  “Go sit on it.” He positioned himself on the other side of the glass enclosure.

  “Sit on your shelves? Why?”

  “Because, I want to remember this. This is the first time I’ve actually completed a project since I became a hermit crab. Just come on.”

  I backed up to the shelves and hefted myself atop one of them. I couldn’t believe he wanted to take a picture of shelves in a greenhouse with me, in my ugliest work clothes, sweaty and disheveled.

  He took several shots before I was even smiling. “Got it,” He said.

  “I wasn’t ready. I must look like I live in the greenhouse, the way I’m dressed.”

  “Don’t you know already,” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re gorgeous, no matter what.”

  “Oh good Lord, that’s getting old, your Highness.”

  He stalked towards me and laid the camera next to me on his newly built shelves. He was such a mystery to me. He had everything, materialistically speaking, yet he was caught in it, struggling against the net he’d wrangled himself in. And I always had my assumptions about rich boys, but here he was mowing grass, building shelves and I knew he kept some other hobby under lock and key in the house. And here he was, always alone, always wanting to touch the world without hope of ever doing so, but could say things that made me melt like he was a playboy with all the worldly experience.

  “Come on Ash, when are we gonna stop playing this game? I’m not the king of anything, especially not this crumbling castle. And the first time you walked in my house, you were so beautiful it felt like my lungs stopped working. You just took my breath right from me.”

  His hands were running up and down my thighs now and even through the stretchy fabric of my yoga pants, I could feel the heat emanating from his hands. And when I’d held his hands before, they weren’t the soft hands of a boy who stayed inside all day. They were the calloused hands of a man who spent hours buried in some kind of work.

  I touched them then, unable to simply receive his touch without reciprocation. I scooted further towards the edge of the shelf and he watched me, his eyes stared at his hands on my legs.

  “We can stop playing the game only if you admit that I won.”

  My hands fisted his shirt and progressively pulled him towards me.

  I couldn’t get over those gray eyes if I tried. And I couldn’t break my gaze from them as he whispered, “You win.”

  I could feel his breath tingle and tickle the pores on my face, promising more.

  “You’re killing me Breaker. If you don’t kiss me, I’m gonna lose it.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want two nut jobs, would we?” And before I could laugh, his lips were on mine, joke forgotten. And though I’d wished for what seemed like a lifetime that I’d be left breathless by the appearance of someone, I knew then and there how wrong I’d been. Because my lungs packed their bags and turned in their timecards when he kissed me, unable and refusing to work under these conditions.

  His hands slid up my legs and grabbed my hips and tugged, bringing me waist to waist with him. I snaked my arms around his neck and crushed our lips even further together and was rewarded with a soft moan from his throat. I opened my mouth and invited him in, to my mouth and my heart. He responded immediately, his tongue moved with mine, apparently a skill he hadn’t forgotten, though he’d been out of practice. I couldn’t help myself, I scooted closer and wrapped my legs around his hips but he shot back away from me, ending our moment.

  “Wow,” I said, more to myself than to him.

  “Wow is right. I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks, but I had no idea.” He had put a couple of feet between us.

  “So why’d you stop?” I was kinda pissed.

  “I don’t want to move too fast Ash. It never ends well when you move too fast. You become wrapped up in it and you forget to really make a relationship. And one day you wake up and find out you’re sleeping with a stranger. And I won’t do that to us—no matter how much I want to.”

  He’d floored me again. And I panicked.

  “Is that a good idea?” I asked hesitantly. I didn’t want to offend him but I also wanted what was best for him.

  He targeted me with those smoky grays and zeroed in, a flash of defensiveness hardened his eyes, “I’m not in AA, Ash. I don’t have some sponsor who recommends I stay out of relationships for my own good. I can do whatever in the hell I want to, from the comfort of this damned prison.”

  I hopped down from the shelf and embraced him before he could push me away.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t want to be something that gets in your way of getting better.”

  He grabbed my shoulders and
pulled me from him, making sure I was looking him in the eye before he drove his point home.

  “You are the reason I’m getting better. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be some clandestine resident of this uppity neighborhood, never to be seen or heard.”

  I giggled, trying to lift the cloud around us, “Well, that’s not true. Everyone can hear your Beastie Boys from miles away.”

  “That’s true. I do play them a little loud.” Mission accomplished.

  “I made lunch a while ago. Let’s go eat and tomorrow we can go get flowers for those new shelves.”

  He nodded and when we walked back in the house, I was under his arm, where I belonged.

  Breaker

  I didn’t plan to kiss her. But I didn’t regret it either. She was soft and pillowy. And I was prickly and rough around the edges—we fit together like the two halves that made Velcro.

  We ate our late lunch and I wondered what would happen after this. Dr. Mavis would resume my treatment on Tuesday, the next day. I was obligated to tell the good doctor about this recent revelation but I feared her Zen advice on the matter. But I was sure my recent accomplishments may change her opinion. I hoped it would.

  We separated to take showers. If I was back to my normal self, I would plan a date for us. Hell, I would’ve planned to date her way before I kissed her. I wasn’t even ready to kiss Holly when our third date rolled around but she straddled me in the car and I made the biggest mistake of my life in the front seat of my dad’s Mercedes.

  And the thing about it was, she could’ve had me—all of me, completely. I didn’t ask for much, just courtesy and dual respect. If she had given me those things, I probably would’ve put up with the rest. Not because I loved her, I didn’t, I was infatuated with her, with pursuing the affection of someone who obviously didn’t want me. Dr. Mavis hinted that it was really me seeking more love from my mother, but thinking about that bullshit was too creepy for words. So I just peeled through the layers of the whole thing and chalked it up to a serious lack of self-esteem.

  But I owed her some semblance of a date. There was a balcony outside the window of the upstairs guest bedroom that would serve my purpose. I gathered a bag of little, tiny candles from a closet where I kept emergency stuff and a lighter. I grabbed my iPod and a speaker, the iPod now filled with those bands I could remember from hers, plus my own.

  I waited upstairs impatiently until it the sun bowed out for the night. I went downstairs and knocked on her door as I didn’t see her anywhere else in the house. She answered with a towel wrapped atop her head, her cheeks red, I assumed from the hot shower, though I hoped it was from the earlier greenhouse business.

  “You got another date, or do you have time to have a date with me?”

  I made sure not to say ‘go out’ since we both knew that was a dead end road.

  “Yeah, give me a minute. Do I need to wear anything special?”

  God, there were so many things I could’ve said at that moment.

  “Nope, just you. Take your time.” I hoped those teensy candles lasted long enough for her to get the full effect.

  I walked back to the kitchen and leaned against the counter. I could see the luminescence of the candles reflected in the panes of our new greenhouse and I hoped it didn’t tip her off. My demand for a better life tripled after kissing her today. My want to be a better man twisted into a need to feel worthy of her hand and her heart.

  She came out minutes later, dressed in a purple shirt and some more of those damned jeans that made me want to do anything but go slow.

  “I set up something. I don’t know…”

  “Oh, no, you don’t get to start being sheepish now. What did you do?”

  “I’m trying to get the beautiful girl in this house to dance with me.”

  “Ah, well lead on.” She put her hand in mine and I led her upstairs. And the closer we got, the more like a loser I felt.

  “It’s the best I could do without…you know…”

  She stepped out on the balcony and looked around and the more she looked, the more I choked.

  “Your best is amazing,” she said as she turned around to face me. “You’re just gonna stand there?”

  I walked over to her, now nervous and unsure again. She was barefoot and I loved that she was so comfortable with me. My hands found her waist and we began the courtship put to music. She talked through every song, about the band, or the lyrics or whatever else struck a chord with her. I loved to hear her talk about nothing—her voice was my everything.

  As my piddly candles finally lost their luster, I showed her the way to get onto the roof where I’d often gone to get out of this incarceration while still retaining my physical tether to the place. The air was just better out there and it always had felt like freedom. But now it was just another constricting tentacle of this solitary confinement.

  We sat there for a while; she leaned against me and wasn’t speaking. I’d learned when she wasn’t talking, something was up.

  “Why so stoic? That’s my job.” I nudged her with my knees.

  She shrugged.

  “Come on,” I bumped her again.

  She sat up and faced me, “I was just thinking. The other day I saw some camping gear in a metal cabinet on the side of the garage. It would get you out of the house and away from here, but we could pick a place that doesn’t have very many people.”

  She resumed her previous place beside me and I appreciated the minute she gave me to think about it.

  “I don’t think we have a tent.” It was the first of many pitiful excuses I would throw at her.

  She laughed, “Come on, that was awful. You know good and well there’s tons of camping stuff in there.”

  “Well, what if it’s too cold.” She hit me in the leg for that one. We were in Southern Louisiana. It was probably ninety two degrees at that very moment.

  “Give me a break.”

  “Fine, when?”

  She shook her head ‘no’, “Nope, I’m not telling you. You’ll just finagle your way out of it. It will be a surprise. “

  “I hate surprises.”

  “I love them.”

  We stayed there all night. I was surprised she didn’t ask me ten million questions, including the one I’d expected from the beginning. Eventually, I knew she’d ask me about Holly, or at least what set me off that day. I’d have to tell her that Dr. Mavis was coming tomorrow. I didn’t want it to scare her. She’d probably think she was gonna give me electrotherapy or put me in a straight jacket.

  “I wanted to remind you that Dr. Mavis is coming tomorrow. She only stays for an hour but I didn’t want it to weird you out or anything.”

  “What time?” I could feel her jaw against my knee.

  “She should be here for nine.”

  “Well, that’s fine. I have breakfast plans with Stephanie anyway. And it won’t interfere with our run.”

  “Damn it,” I was hoping to be excused for another muscle burning, chest heaving run.

  We went back inside after she had yawned so much that tears were running down her face. I’d asked her several times if she wanted to go inside but she refused.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand, “walk me to my room.”

  I followed her down the stairs and the hall that I now thought of as hers. We got to her door and I honestly expected nothing but to tell her goodnight.

  But then she grabbed my shirt and before I knew it, I had her pinned to the wall, my hands in her hair, my tongue exploring the sweet cave of her mouth. This time she groaned but as soon as I felt her hands under my shirt I slowed down and forced myself to move away from her. She cleared her throat and touched her fingers to her lips before speaking.

  “Tomorrow, when I get home, we’re still going to get flowers, right?”

  “No, I forgot to tell you, I have to go to Blue Bayou waterpark and then I’m gonna hit the mall. But then, I guess if I have time, we can go.”

  She turned me away from her w
ith her hands on my shoulders and pushed me a little, “Ok, don’t forget your sunscreen.” And as she closed the door to her bedroom I heard her mumble, “And he calls me the smartass.”

  I went back to my room, still wrapped in the smell of her. I swore for the rest of my life when I smelled freshly cut grass I’d think of Ash. I heard a car in the driveway about an hour later and looked out the blinds to see Ash get into the car with a girl about her age. After they drove away I went downstairs to test myself one more time. I opened the front door, intending to go outside and maybe take a walk around the block—but I froze. My toes were glued to the threshold and my hand became cemented to the doorknob.

  A waterfall of despair and doom poured over me, glassing over my eyes and filling my ears with trickles of dread. I took a step back, removing my hand and my foot from their traps and tried to emerge into the moonlight, thinking of Ash, and the way she’d held my hand the first time I crossed the same entrance just a few days ago. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t make myself do it. It was like one of those vampire books where they couldn’t enter a home without the owner’s permission. And at that moment, I felt like the pale, fanged bloodsucker and Ash owned the world I was trying to enter. But she wasn’t present to give me permission.

  The repercussions of what I’d figured out squeezed the air out of my chest. And it was there, still frozen in place, that I made another brash decision that I knew one day would come back to haunt me.

  “I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her that I have to have her to leave. She’ll know. She’ll know and then she’ll leave me.” I spoke to the designer wallpaper around me. But the walls gave me no comfort. They provided no advice, no solace for my restless thoughts.

  I shut the door, watching the outside world grow smaller and smaller as the oak fell into the doorframe. I locked it; and with it any hope I had for getting better. Tectonic plates shifted within me and I realized what the future held for me. But I was determined to hold on to Ash, even if that meant lying to myself.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~